There have recently been postings covering screwcutting and updating of ML4 lathes, that led me to post my experience on these 2 fronts although my ML4 .updating was 50 years ago.

All my machines, like me , are of the last century they look substantial and in many cases very pleasing to the eye. This is particularly the case with my Dalton lathe , picture enclosed after refurbishment. This item is over 100 years old but has many desirable dimensional relationships (bed width to centre ht. carriage support length to centre ht.) that would be sought after today.

After the refurb. practical aspects of the machines use became clear and its use in todays environment left room for improvement. The significant increase in Metric unit use, needs extra work on set up of the machine, and in my brain which still works in imperial units and needs a conversion for my understanding. All the foregoing bought to mind the single tooth mod done on the Myford. Then along came Joe, he being Joe Noci who described his refurb. of an Emco lathe and the fitting of an electronic leadscrew designed with his wife Gisela ( they are without doubt a formidable team).

This unit will allow the lathe to cut imperial or metric pitches , internal, external and left hand threads without resort to change wheels or thread dials and as an extra includes variable speed carriage feed. Joe describes it as an electronic version of the single tooth clutch approach I was sold on this as a must have.

Joe agreed to help me build and understand what I was doing, in building the unit. He did say it was not a plug and play project and was he ever right..

The photo's show the Dalton headstock with all the gearcutting and feed kit removed as they are now redundant, in their place is the encoder that reads the mandrel activity and the stepper motor that drives the leadscrew.

Also shown is the control panel, used when the feed function, left and right traverse, and the thread and return buttons. This is mounted in a convenient position for operation.

The further picture shows the unit used to set the pitch and unit for threading together with the start and finishing position of the thread to be cut. This unit also carries the feed speed control pot.

That then is the project that moved a100 year old machine from one century to the next in its function and scope. To my mind it looks as though it was meant to be, still beautiful .

paul

Sorry folks my computer or the site will not allow me to make an album or post it, when its sorted I will repost.

paul